your name like a box where I keep my love
by halyorked
Summary: Five times that Klaus and Caroline meet over the years in their eternal lives.


**So I got talked into writing a thing the prompt for which was KLAUS/CAROLINE, AND LIKE A 5 TIMES OR WHATEVER TIMES THEY MEET OVER THE YEARS IN THEIR ETERNAL LIVES, so this is what came of that. **

* * *

The thing that stops him from just walking up to her is her hair. It's cut short, reminiscent of the 1920's more than the 2020's in that it's wavy and soft compared to the sharp edges and sleek lines that seem to be modernly mainstream. It's been fifteen years since he's seen her and time hasn't worn her ragged yet. Klaus is incredibly thankful. She's still a candle and he's still a moth drawn to the flame. It burned him before, but maybe he'll be luckier this time.

(It's much more likely that he's just an addict, like Rebekah says. Caroline has broken him open and then let others play with his insides so many times before, but he can't help but to still love her.)

They're in Chicago and even with the hundred or so feet that spread between them, Klaus can hear her calling out for Stefan who is jogging across the street towards her. He could just walk away and leave them there to go about their day (he's been practicing lip reading, and Caroline just mumbled something about a club or about love. Klaus is hoping it's the former.), or he could be the bad guy and join them without an invitation.

He's saved both them and their loved ones countless times over the years and they still call him evil, so he decides to give in; just this once.

The two of them haven't walked off yet, which makes his catching up to them much easier. "Well, look who we have here?"

Klaus smirks when Stefan seems to stiffen at his words.

Caroline is just as relaxed as she was before, but even before he left Mystic Falls it had been ages since she'd been afraid of him.

"Klaus, what are you doing here?" She doesn't sound angry, and that's almost as much of a shock as her drastic haircut had been.

He keeps his smirk on his face though, and doesn't share how much that he's missed her (and he's missed her so much. Cami had been a good distraction for a while but then she'd started to age and when he'd given in, his face buried in her hair, and his teeth in her carotid he'd let blood pool into his sheets, and his pillows, and his hair while he hummed that Neil Diamond song that Rebekah had taken to teasing him with when they'd first moved to New Orleans.)

"I had some work to attend to. It's all taken care of though, and I've got nothing to do until I head back to New Orleans." He finds that it's much easier to travel when you're not worried about your siblings that you've left mostly safe in coffins somewhere, plus there are fewer chances that you'll have to compel a cop to get you out of a speeding ticket if you're driving at night.

Stefan nods at that, and Caroline speaks like she can't control it, even after these few years, "You should have coffee with us before you go." Stefan quickly turns to look at Caroline, and the two of them begin to carry on a conversation made up only of minute changes in facial expression. In the end it seems that Caroline wins, and Klaus has very little choice of his own. He's sure that Stefan is thinking the same thing.

They end up in some tiny secluded coffee house where the man behind the counter seems to know, and have a bit of a crush on, Caroline. Klaus stares him down, but in the end decides that it's none of his business and that he can't be any worse for her than Tyler.

(Klaus still doesn't feel bad for killing him, though. He thinks it will have to be one of those things that he and Caroline never see eye to eye about, like gifts left for her on her bed and pop music.)

They all sit at a small table outside and it's just windy enough that the movement of Caroline's hair keeps catching his eye.

After it happens a few times, he reaches out to grab at a piece of it, and wraps it around a couple of his fingers. "What's with the haircut, love?" The endearment just slips out, but when her cheeks turn pink he thinks that the caffeine has already started to kick in.

"I just thought I needed a change." She looks almost like she wants to run her fingers through it, like she hasn't quite gotten used to it not all being there.

"It certainly is different." He takes just a moment more to memorize the look of his fingers in her hair before letting go and grabbing his coffee cup again.

She reaches up to fix it after that, as though his fingers and the wind have completely ruined her hairstyle, and she's defensive when she speaks again. "Well, I like it."

Klaus stops toying with the edge of his cup and looks up to meet Caroline's eyes again. "I didn't say that I disliked it, sweetheart. I simply said that it was different."

They stare at each other for a moment until she shyly glances away when Stefan grumbles from his seat next to them that he thought that they were finished with that.

"Oh, Stefan, I don't think we'll ever be finished with that." Klaus says smugly and he continues to stare at Caroline, until she looks at him again. This time it's from the corner of her eye like looking at him is a rule she doesn't want to be caught breaking.

When his phone buzzes in his pocket a few minutes later with a message from Elijah telling him that he's needed back sooner than they'd anticipated because there's a problem with the fallout of the business that had brought him to Chicago in the first place, he sighs. "I hate to cut our visit short, but duty calls. Until next time?"

He gets a nod from the both of them and the smallest of smiles from Caroline, and, Klaus would swear that he could feel Caroline's eyes heavy on his back as he walks away.

It's Stefan's 200th birthday the next time that Caroline sees Klaus. It's a theme party, and Caroline already can't wait to get out of her corset. Her dress is a beautiful blue thing that she dug out of a trunk in the basement of the Salvatore boarding house. She's only just glad that she doesn't need to breathe to survive.

Stefan is in a bow tie, Damon is wearing a cravat, and the two of them barely seem able to look at Elena, who is wearing the dress of their long dead maker. It's eerie for Caroline and she hadn't been alive to know Katherine then.

Caroline may have planned the theme of the party (after talking Stefan into having one at all), but the music that's playing is some mix of classic instrumentals and the indie rock and roll that's become Stefan's favorite.

There are a surprising number of people there, since most of Stefan's friends have died as time has gone by. As she mingles, she decides that Stefan must just be the type of person that draws other people to him. It had happened to her so long ago, and it had happened to Lexi and Rebekah and Klaus and Katherine even before that.

As it is, she sees Rebekah first. The two of them have been getting along better with time. Mostly because Rebekah and Stefan have an on again-off again relationship that's worse than anyone else Caroline has ever heard of before. Caroline really just wants for them to make up their minds.

"Caroline!" Rebekah is rushing forward to meet her in the middle of the room, and their arms are soon wrapped tightly around each other. "It's so nice to see you." Rebekah's voice gets quieter and she leans in a bit from where they had separated to whisper to Caroline. "Have you seen Nik yet?"

Caroline thinks that if emotional responses had much effect on her body that her heart would've started pounding a bit harder and faster. "I haven't."

"He's around here somewhere, couldn't help but to tag along when I mentioned what was happening." They've leaned back into their own spaces and Rebekah's eyes are scanning the room looking for Stefan or Klaus, and in the end she finds them both at the same time.

They're standing together and Stefan is pouring Klaus something to drink, both of them laughing at Damon trying to escape a blood-drunk Elena. Caroline had tried to remind him that giving Elena even one drink before the party starts never ends well, but he had decided that he knew better and now Elena's drunk and grabby. Caroline laughs at that too, wonders if Damon has finally realized what a punishment being with Elena forever will be.

He deserves it, so she doesn't let herself be troubled.

She's been chatting with Rebekah for a few minutes when she feels old eyes, heavy with the weight of more than a thousand years land on her. She glances over at him from the corner of her eyes, and his seemingly ever-present smirk shifts into the smile that he used to save for her.

It doesn't take long for their conversation to stall a bit, and at that Rebekah decides that she should go and talk to the birthday boy. The two Mikaelsons must be on the same wavelength because Caroline watches as they walk past each other, nodding as they switch places.

As he gets closer, Caroline finds herself unable to look at him. He's dressed like some sort of pirate, half of his loose shirt unbuttoned and his customary chains clinking together when he moves, his boots loud on the floor. "Who are you supposed to be? Johnny Depp?" The movies fought the good fight against time, but in modern days it's a reference to a film few have seen.

She finally looks back at him, and finds that he looks better than Jack Sparrow had. It's an incredible shock to ten-year-old Caroline.

"Nice to see you too, love." Klaus is amused as ever, and it's infuriating. "But everyone wasn't always so buttoned up, and the rest of this suit was a bit ruined." She doesn't want to think about what he means by that. There's really no telling with him.

She grimaces and suddenly wishes that she had a drink or something to fiddle with. As it is, she smoothes her hand down the skirt of her dress and twists a lose thread around her fingers. "It's not exactly appropriate though."

He empties his glass and looks over to where the alcohol sits. It's tempting but Rebekah and Stefan are flirting next to it, and that's not something that Caroline wants to witness up close anytime soon.

(She'd been there the last time the two of them had seen each other, and while it may have been a party it was nothing like this one and she's immensely grateful. Hopefully all of their clothes will stay on until they're behind closed doors this time. She doesn't need to see that again.)

"I think that you've mistaken me for Elijah, sweetheart."

She sends a glare towards him, but before she can say anything else the music changes back into an instrumental and Stefan is being dragged out onto the floor. Other couples form around them and before she knows it, Caroline is being swept into Klaus' arms, his glass deposited on a nearby table.

They fall into the steps easily and she almost feels like she's back in high school, dancing with him to distract him so that her friends can continue plotting to kill him and his family. It's a déjà vu that leaves a strange taste in her mouth. Things had been simpler back then, even with the world out to get them. She hadn't needed an excuse to see him, even though she wouldn't admit to wanting one now.

"We've come a long way since prom and the decade dance." She remembers why she dislikes dancing with him then. He's quieter now, voice little more than a low growl in her ear that sends chills down her spine. "At least, your talents haven't faded."

Somewhere far away, Caroline can almost hear Elena laughing and Susan (a friend from Montana) as someone undoubtedly steps on her dress. She can feel the happiness oozing from Stefan even from her place across the floor, but Klaus is all that she's noticing. Even the last time they were in Mystic Falls when she was grieving her relationship with Tyler and using her anger as a shield, he had still taken up too much of her brain, distracting her from other more important things.

"Of course not. Once Miss Mystic Falls always Miss Mystic Falls." It's something that she's still protective over, though she's done things that are more important in the grand scheme of things. When she won Miss Mystic Falls, she was human and that's pretty important too.

She turns to scowl at him, and while she knew that they were standing close together, it's different to have visual proof that he's standing so close. His breath moves the loose hair around her face, and it tickles her cheeks.

"I'll have to keep that in mind." From this close she's not sure if he's smirking or smiling, but either way it's bothering her and she has to look away. They're quiet through the rest of the dance, but she stretches up on her toes and without thinking, Caroline presses a kiss against his cheek.

Before her heels are on the ground again, she's not sure why she did it and from the look on his face Klaus isn't either. "Well, I'm going to go get a drink now. Thank you for the dance."

She can hear him saying, "my pleasure," behind her, and after that she spends the rest of the night making sure that she knows where he is so that she doesn't have to talk to him again. She loses track of him when most everyone has left for home and Stefan and Rebekah have started inching their way towards the stairs hoping that no one who is still lingering will draw attention to them.

Caroline's just pouring herself a drink to help her sleep when she feels someone walk up behind her. She tenses and prepares to slam her drink in their face when the person speaks. "Goodnight, sweetheart." His lips are right against her ear, and she has to close her eyes to stop herself from doing something, though she's not sure what.

She opens her eyes just in time to see the door slam closed behind him.

After Stefan's party it's a shorter amount of time than ever before, but he thinks that he would wait another twenty years if she hadn't knocked on his door for this reason. Her eyes are wide and there's a sad set to her mouth that he hasn't seen in so long and it makes him wonder who died.

"I need your help." She flicks her eyes down the hallway, and only then does he wonder how much trouble she's gone through to find him. He's staying in a hotel in New York for a few weeks, before heading out to France or Italy or Spain or all three in turn, he's not sure yet. He notices that there's a man slumped against the wall a few rooms down.

He's suddenly aware of the charcoal on his fingers and paint on his wrists, but he stands just a bit straighter and smirks. "With what, love? Got an itch you can't scratch?"

Caroline rolls her eyes and for half a second he can forget about the ominous presence standing just down the hall.

"His name is Max." The man shuffles up a few feet, and Klaus can make out dark hair, but not much else. "He was walking on his way to meet me for dinner when a werewolf got to him? I'm not sure exactly he's been mostly delirious since I found him this morning, and I called Rebekah because I knew that you had moved but I didn't know where to, and then it took most of the day to get here which wasn't easy even with the tinting on the windows of his car, and I just. I need you to help him."

"So you don't need my help, Max needs my help." Klaus sneers out the name and he's ready to invite Caroline in for a drink while _Max_ dies a slow and painful death down the hallway outside of room 1510. The only thing stopping him is the look on Caroline's face.

"I- I care about him, Klaus, please."

He can feel anger surging through him and he sends a quick look at Max, who's been slowly making his way towards them. Klaus would smirk if it wouldn't feel like a betrayal to his anger. (He refuses to call it jealousy. He's older than the United States, there's nothing that this _infant_ of a vampire has that he wants.)

This reminds him altogether too much of waiting out his being trapped in the old Gilbert house before it burned down. It's a feeling that he doesn't like, but at least Max hasn't done anything to him. Tyler had earned Klaus' rage and it had ultimately ended in his death.

Klaus turns and walks away from the doorway, quickly catching a look of hurt on Caroline's face. "Bring him in. You're not going to want to drag him around and he's going to need some sleep. Or don't you remember?"

He grabs the glass that he'd stolen from the hotel bar and looks around for something sharp while Caroline settles Max on the sofa.

Klaus finds a knife hidden in a piece of his luggage and uses it to cut at his wrist, letting the blood pour into the glass that still smelled faintly of alcohol just moments ago. Now it only smells of the sweet metal tang of blood. Caroline looks confused at this, like he thought that he was going to offer up his arm for this stranger that she _cares about_.

When the glass is full, he hands it over, and Max sucks it down. Klaus thinks about leaving or going to the other room, but he figures that he should stay in case Max needs more blood to heal, but a few moments later the wound seems to be stitching itself back together and his part in this is finished.

"Don't forget this, Caroline." He's warning her, but he doesn't know what the consequences will be if she forgets.

She looks at him again, and there's almost a smile on her face. "I won't." He walks out the door and her eyes are as heavy on his back as they always are. It makes him wonder if she feels this way when she's the one walking away from him.

He goes to a bar and drinks, finds a woman and charms her into taking him home with her. They sleep together and after Klaus feeds until everything is dull-edged and smooth, temper lessened by the heat of someone else's blood running through his veins, he leaves.

When he gets back to his hotel room, Caroline and Max are gone, but there's a note resting on the table. It doesn't say anything other than "thank you". It takes him a moment to see the small message number, and a "just in case" hidden in the corner. It's barely there and probably something that Caroline regrets, but he still puts it into his phone before sending a message to give her the same advantage that he has.

He just hopes that when she uses it, it isn't to get him to save her latest boyfriend.

Caroline had imagined that if she made it to her one-hundredth birthday, she would be gray and wrinkled and tiny and arthritic. The reality is nothing like her daydreams, and she's glad. Arthritis was never something that she was looking forward to.

She's having a party later tonight though, something completely different than Stefan's bicentennial.

They've been back in Mystic Falls for a couple of years now, Rebekah and Stefan and Caroline are going through high school again, bored and wondering what the youth of today are learning. It's not much different than when Caroline herself was in school, only there's another eighty years of war and death to be memorized for finals.

The house is kind of pulsing because the bass is so heavy, and she spares a moment for the humans standing close to the speakers. They're going to regret that when they're her age. Or maybe not, it isn't like she'll ever know.

When she feels herself start getting sad again, Caroline throws back the rest of her drink and goes to get another. Stefan and Rebekah are dancing, bodies close against each other and it makes Caroline glad that they're in a good place. The last thing that she wants is for her birthday to be ruined by them fighting. Things have been mostly calm since they've been back in town and it's refreshing compared to the insanity of what was happening the last time that they lived there.

She sees Matt's grandkids chatting with the latest generation of Fells. The founding families are mostly still here. The Lockwoods are the only ones that aren't, their family died out a long time ago with Tyler's heart getting pulled out of his chest.

After refilling her cup, Caroline heads outside. It's quieter though she can still feel some of the vibrations in the air making her breath stutter, and she has the distinct feeling that she isn't alone. There's a couple making out and grinding against each other against a tree at the edge of the yard, and it's really a wonder that teenagers in this town haven't gotten any smarter.

Her phone beeps with a new message, this one from Klaus. (She'd gotten a few from Elena earlier, saying that she and Damon were out of the country and that they weren't going to make it back to the Falls in time for her birthday. She wasn't surprised at their not showing, but she had been hoping that Klaus would make an appearance.) It's not an uncommon thing. They're almost friends still, though it's hard with the feelings that she can tell that he still feels and the ones that she pretends she doesn't feel.

Normally when they talk Klaus wonders about the perpetual ignorance of underlings, and Caroline complains that homework is still terrible, and that Stefan's ideas are terrible. (He had called her after that one, just so that she would hear the amusement in his tone when he says that he could have told her that.)

This time it's a simple 'happy birthday, Caroline' and she can hear him saying it. She'd been in pain, and most of that night, the first time he saved her, feels like a bad dream but she still remembers it, no matter how fuzzy and faded the memories may be.

She's fiddling with her bracelet, diamonds still as beautiful as when he gave them to her the first time and when he'd had Rebekah give it back to her the second time, when the door opens behind her. She doesn't pay it any attention since it's probably just a person leaving the party early for one reason or another. She can remember having a thousand reasons to do the same when she'd had a family to go home to.

"I still love birthdays."

Caroline scowls down into her cup. In all of her years of drinking, she's never hallucinated anything. Not when it's anything other than vervain spiked absinthe and she'd accidentally learned that lesson a long time ago. She spins around and goes to head back inside to check what's going on with the drink situation when she bumps into someone.

"Klaus?"

He smirks at her, and somehow managed to avoid getting alcohol on their shoes. "In the flesh."

"What are you doing here? You said that you weren't going to make it because you were in South America on business with Elijah." It's been more than seventy years since he left for New Orleans and she's still not sure what _business_ actually means. It can't just be him traveling around and scaring people. There has to be more to it than that. "Oh! Is Elijah here?" She's gotten close to him as well. He's sensible and makes a perfect cup of pretty much anything.

Klaus is the only one that she doesn't spend extended amounts of time with.

"Yes, he's inside somewhere. Trying to get our darling baby sister to stop acting like a harlot in the middle of the dance floor, I'm sure. And I said that I might not be here. Our business finished early. We just got back a couple of hours ago."

Caroline feels warm and bubbly inside, but she can't let it show, so instead she puts on her polite smile and says in her best hostess voice, "Well, I'm glad you could make it." Something must slip past though, because Klaus' smirk becomes a smile if only for a moment. "I need a drink." She steps around him and walks back into the house, can feel him following behind her.

She drains her plastic cup and refills it, after checking quickly that there isn't any vervain laced absinthe hidden anywhere just to be sure. She fills a cup for Klaus as well and hands it to him, needing an excuse for why he was following her. She has classmates here, and the last thing she needs is a rumor about the creepy older guy following her around.

She's already having enough trouble with the one that says that Stefan is planning on leaving Rebekah to be with Caroline instead. The three of them laugh about it, but sometimes in the hallways people glare at her like the next fight the lovebirds get into will be all her fault.

"I have something for you." Klaus is leaning forward into her as he says it, quietly enough that it feels intimate, but loud enough that some other girls on the cheerleading squad giggle.

She levels an angry look at both the girls and Klaus, but she's still anxious about what he's gotten her.

It's a ring box, wrapped with a ribbon just like the bracelet had been. Her eyes widen and when she looks up from the box Klaus is smirking again. "Just open it."

She undoes the ribbon and waits to see him move to kneel down. He doesn't move though, and when she opens the box it's wonderfully not an engagement ring that she finds. It is a ring, but it's got a couple of small pale blue stones in the center instead of a diamond.

Even without any diamonds, she thinks that it matches her bracelet.

"Oh, this is gorgeous." She pulls it out of the box and slides it onto the middle finger of her right hand. It's a strange feeling to be wearing a ring that's not going to keep her alive when the sun rises, but it's nice. The blues work well together, and she wonders for a moment how many things Klaus planned for it to match. "Thank you."

He smiles at her, but before either of them can say anything else Rebekah comes bounding up; mostly to get a drink, but also just to bother them. "Are you two finally going to stop just dancing around this thing that you have and sleep together? I think it would do you both a world of good."

She's downing her drink like dancing with Stefan has made her dehydrated, and Caroline thinks that there's blood in the freezer downstairs that would make her feel so much better right now. "Oh well." She quickly refills her cup before moving back across the room to reclaim Stefan from the girls that had walked up after she walked away.

Klaus and Caroline just stare at each other for a moment after that, before Caroline remembers the blood in the freezer. "I'm just going to go get a drink." She turns and takes a couple of steps away, before turning back to ask, "do you want one?"

"I'd love one, sweetheart."

They make their way towards the basement door, and when no one's looking they slip in. The teenagers of Mystic Falls don't need thoughts put into their heads about torture rooms and the strange, still relatively, new kids.

Caroline still doesn't like drinking directly from people, but when she'd lived in Chicago and New York City and Seattle, it was easier just to steal some blood from a blood bank than to go and find an animal to drink. Since then it became a habit, and now even Stefan is pretty good about keeping control of his Ripper tendencies. (Though they all know that one day he's going to break again and this time it's going to be Caroline and Rebekah that bring him back. Caroline isn't looking forward to it.)

She tears open a blood bag, and pours half into her glass and the rest into his, licking at her fingers and the side of the plastic when her hold on the bag makes a bit of a mess. "We should get back, otherwise people will talk."

(People are going to be talking anyway. There have been a thousand rumors to go around the school about the men of Rebekah's family, and now that they've finally made an appearance, things are only going to get worse.)

She has to mingle when they get back upstairs since it's her birthday, but in between talking to everyone and catching him talking to the few girls brave enough to chat with him, even with the dark and kind of menacing vibe that he's giving off, she can tell that his eyes are following her. It makes a couple of the younger girls on the squad a little uncomfortable, and she has to hope that she's telling the truth when she promises that he's not going to do anything to them or to her.

Elijah is the first of them to leave, pressing a kiss to her cheek and wishing her one hundred more birthdays to follow this one. She smiles and thanks him, wishes him another thousand and then he's sliding out the door on the tail of a gaggle of giggling girls, turning back to show Caroline that he's rolling his eyes at them.

Stefan and Rebekah go next, the two of them wishing her a goodnight before sneaking up the stairs to Stefan's room. Half of the guests are still there, but things are slowing down, the music getting turned down and more people are relaxing on the furniture than are still dancing.

Caroline's been talking to Klaus on and off all night, conversations starting and stopping just like if they were messaging each other as she has to go do things like make sure guests don't throw up on the carpet and dance with people when they drag her out onto the floor.

She finally has a moment to assess the amount of cleanup that she'll have to do tomorrow, when Klaus walks up to her. "I'm heading out, love. Happy birthday." She's tipsy on blood and alcohol and she just really wants to kiss him.

She thinks for a second that she's going to regret this, but it doesn't stop her from leaning forward and putting her lips on his. It's soft and slow and sweet enough that it makes her teeth ache. It's everything that she wouldn't expect from a thousand year old psychopathic hybrid, but it's exactly what he gives her and it's perfect all the same.

When they pull apart, she's afraid of what's going to happen. She's never known him to have a handle on his temper, and he can't just dagger her until he isn't mad any more. She tries to explain it away, but when she opens her mouth she's reminded of the taste of him and she doesn't feel like she can say anything that matters. "I- I don't-"

He shushes her and leans forward to press a kiss into her hairline, and nods before turning and leaving like he'd been planning to just a few moments ago.

Everyone else seems to leave pretty quickly after that, gossiping quietly as they make their way out in groups of three and four, and when she's left alone she sweeps the trash from the couch and lays down, sends Klaus a message asking if he's angry at her.

When she wakes up, he's replied saying that he isn't and Caroline is glad. They're kind of friends, and she doesn't want to have accidentally screwed that up. It isn't something that she would freely admit but she would miss him too much.

Klaus is painting when he hears a knock at his door. He can hear the rain pouring down outside and there's a cliché feeling in all of this, like a scene from a mainstream romance novel that gets adapted into a film that everyone loves.

He grabs a rag and smears at the small bits of paint lingering on his fingers. It isn't all coming off, but there's no way that he's leaving fingerprints on the door.

Elijah would have his head.

He pulls the door open and sees a familiar head of blonde hair, but not the one that he would expect. "Caroline."

She looks nervous, but in different way than the last time she'd shown up at his door. She looks like there's something humming under her skin. "Hi."

"Come in." He moves out of the way, and she comes in. Her eyes are interested as she takes in what little of the house she can currently see. It's not as large as the mansion in Mystic Falls had been, but there's a foyer that they're standing in. It's a place for art and a decorative umbrella stand and coat rack that no one really uses. "Would you like a drink?"

She nods and follows him deeper into the house, and after Klaus pours their drinks, he takes a seat on the sofa. He can almost see the energy running through Caroline and doesn't quite blame her for not following the rules of polite conversation. "Is there any chance that I could get you to tell me what you're doing here?"

She starts a bit at that, and Klaus sits straighter in his seat. If another evil villain has decided that Mystic Falls means something to them, he might just have to politely duck out of the "Save the Locals" program and leave them be.

She takes a sip of her drink like she needs a bit of liquid courage to get her words out. "I just wanted to see you, I guess." She's been a vampire for close to a hundred years and she's changed so little. "It's been a while."

The last time he'd seen her, she had kissed him and then looked like the world had disappeared from under her feet. Instead of holding it against her, he had walked away and put it behind him. She had asked him to do far worse, a long time ago. They were probably due for a new mistake. "That it has."

They share their drinks in silence for a while before she finally sits down. She's still nervous, and he can almost see her trying to work up to saying something.

He decides to try and take some of the pressure off. If she starts talking then she will work up to whatever it is that is bothering her.

"How is Stefan doing?" He knows how Stefan's doing since Rebekah and Elijah (and then Elijah and Klaus sometime after that) talk every week and she comes to visit Nik often enough, but Stefan is someone who calms Caroline. He's her oldest friend and they still seem very close.

It seems to work, because she stops toeing the carpet. "He's fine. He and Rebekah are in a good period, though you probably knew that. It's been eerily calm around the apartment. We're set to graduate in a few months, but I don't know if I'm going to be go." She quickly looks over at him before sliding her eyes back to a painting hanging across from them.

"And why is that?"

"I just," she drags the _ess_ sound out a little and quiets before turning to face him. She's fiddling with something on her hand and after a moment Klaus realizes that it's the ring that he'd given her. It still looks good, still matches her eyes. Today, they reflect the storm that's raging outside.

After a deep breath, she seems ready to finish her reasoning. "I don't really need the degree, not when in a few years I'm just going to have to start all over again. One of the drawbacks of never aging."

It seems to be a good enough reason, and he says as much, but then she's speaking again. "And I'm tired of fighting with myself. I don't want to tell myself that I don't like you, because you're a bad person and you've done some awful things, when it doesn't help anything. It doesn't help me to like you less, and I'm pretty sure that Damon started a betting pool on us, like, twenty years ago."

Klaus adds that to the list of reasons why he wants to tear Damon's fingers off, but doesn't linger on it for too long. Heartfelt confessions aren't something that he hears everyday, and especially not from the lovely woman sitting next to him.

He doesn't want to have misheard, so he has to make sure. "Caroline, exactly what are you saying?"

Her hands go still in her lap, and after another couple of deep breaths she answers him. "I'm saying that if you still want me, I'm yours." She sounds like something from Austen or the other novels of the time, and it makes him wonder what she's been reading lately.

"Oh, Caroline," is all that Klaus says before he moves across the couch to lean into her. His hands move up to hold her face, and then waits a second to watch her eyes drop to his mouth and then slide closed. He's been waiting for nearly a century for this. It's not their first kiss, but it's so much different than that had been.

Where that had been slow and steady, sweet in a way that Klaus knows has never been him, there's a sense of urgency here. Her arms wrap around his neck and his trail down to slide against her sides and then they're moving. It takes a moment for them to move into a position that gets her legs out from between them, but then they're twisting uncomfortably.

In the end, he just tightens his fingers on her hips and drags her into his lap. Caroline gasps, and he smirks. Klaus trails his lips across her jaw and down her neck enjoying the feel of Caroline breathing against his lips and the feel of her chest needlessly expanding against his.

Her hands trail down his neck and chest, slipping underneath his shirt when he sucks a mark onto the spot where her neck meets her shoulder. He watches as it fades, vampire healing making her skin smooth and pale once again.

Her nails scratch lightly as she moves to pull his shirt over his head. It's a much nicer feeling when he's in his own body. His face is pressing into her neck, and his hands are dancing lightly across the small of her back, tugging her shirt up bit by bit.

It's damp from the rain and it sticks, like a warning sign telling him that this is private property and he's supposed to stay out, but he's never been good at following directions (it's the main reason that he's here today after all) and her teeth are biting at his neck, blunt and human and for once she's not biting him because she's dying.

Her shirt is dropped next to the sofa, in hopes that they'll remember to clean up before Elijah gets back from wherever business currently has him.

She leans up to kiss him again, nails scratching at his facial hair, and Klaus spreads his fingers on her sides. They're trailing lightly across them and when they pull apart from each other, Caroline's mouth extra pink and a little shiny, he can imagine the colors on his fingers leaving trails on her sides; an undead canvas that's all for him.

"You know," He's speaking conversationally, like one of her hands isn't running across the waistband of his pants, "I've been thinking of leaving again, going somewhere exciting." He has to look her in the eyes as he says this last part; words have more impact when you're looking in someone's eyes as you say them. "I was wondering, love, if you would like to join me."

The light that Caroline is always so full of seems to come bubbling up and out, spilling over into a smile and a small laugh, "I would love to."

Klaus has to kiss her at that, and it's a little strange with both of them grinning into each other's mouths. He wraps his arms around her and holds her tight, before pulling away to whisper in her ear. "Hold on, sweetheart."

She seems confused but wraps her arms around his neck again, tightens her thighs on his hips, and when he stands up she lets out a surprised noise but doesn't move to get down or to cross her legs behind his back. It's a sign that she feels safe and he kisses her again, moving them easily through the house.

Before she left with Klaus, Stefan gave Caroline a camera. She's not sure how but every picture that she takes seems to turn out perfectly, and after a week she sends a message to Stefan irritated that he thought she needed the extra help. He sends back that maybe she's just that good, and she has to video call him, so that he can see her roll her eyes. He and Rebekah make plans to meet Klaus and Caroline somewhere, but the two of them can't seem to agree on where.

It makes Caroline hope that they're still in a good place when Stefan calls her next week to talk about it more.

She likes taking pictures of Klaus where the light deceptively gives him a halo. It also seems that no matter how many times she tries to tell him to smile he won't until she points the camera away from him.

"I keep forgetting, you've got that whole busy being the big bad evil hybrid thing. You can't have any proof that you smile from happiness on a regular basis. That would make it much less scary when you do that menacing smile." She says, sunglasses on her face as she fiddles with one of the settings on the camera.

He whispers in her ear, and twirls a curl from her ponytail around his finger. "Exactly." They're on a boat to Spain, having decided to take a break from the heavy foods of France for a little while, and Caroline isn't sure how she feels about sailing. It mainly makes her glad that air travel is still so much faster.

Caroline sees another passenger and walks over to her. She introduces herself and Klaus, claiming that they've just got engaged and would she take a picture of them. The woman smiles brightly at them and agrees, following them over to where they had been standing a moment ago.

She says, "smile!" and Caroline does, while Klaus looks only minorly amused. The woman doesn't seem happy about this, and stands there for a moment watching him until Caroline turns and kisses him lightly.

She knows that it's still not something that he's used to and when they pull away, Caroline hears the click of the camera and sees the woman smiling, moving to hand the camera back.

"Thank you." Caroline says, and the woman gives a quick you're welcome before wishing them a long and happy life together which makes Caroline laugh and Klaus smile now that he's off camera.

The first picture that she took is simple, and normal. It's the type of picture that you could see in a million people's homes and not think twice about. In the second one they're still very close, but not kissing anymore and they're both wearing small almost dreamy smiles. It makes Caroline laugh, while Klaus scowls over her shoulder.

"Looks like I got you to smile on camera after all." She says smugly, and Klaus moves them around and pushes her against the railing, kissing her as he tries to get the camera out of her hands.


End file.
